Proportioning system of ingredient



Sept. 30, 1947.

P. J. SOULEN 2,428,100 PROPORTIONING SYSTEM OF INGREDIENT FEED TO DISINTEGRATING MILL FOR INSULATION PRODUCTION Fil-ed Feb. 23, .1945

A TTORWEVS.

Patented Sept. 30, 1947 PROPORTIONING SYSTEM OF INGREDIENT FEED TO DISINTEGRATING MILL FOR IN- SULATION PRODUCTION Peter J. Soulen, Wauwatosa,

Wis, assignor to Pal-O-Pak Insulation Company Inc., Hartland, Wis, a corporation of Wisconsin Application February 23, 1945, Serial No. 579,435

3 Claims. 1

The present invention relates in general to improvements in the art of manufacturing insulating materials for buildings or the like, and relates more specifically to an improved system for controlling the quantities of ingredients introduced into insulation material during production thereof.

The primary object of my invention is to provide an improved mode of insuring constant and rapid production of insulating material having uniform consistency and at minimum cost.

It has heretofore been common commercial practice to produce bulk insulating material by disintegrating ordinary paper such as news print in hammer or shredding mills, while admitting quantities of so-called fire resistant and vermin proof chemical in granular form to the disintegrating chamber. In accordance with prior practice, the news papers were distributed manually and in relatively uniform layers of varying thickness, upon a conveyor leading to the disintegrating chamber of the mill, and substantial quantities of granular chemical were mixed with air and blown into the reducing chamber and were thereafter thoroughly mixed with the disintegrated paper by the rapidly revolving disintegrating rotor.

While this method of producing the insulation was fairly satisfactory, it has been found difficult to properly introduce the chemical with the aid of a blower in a manner which produces final insulation having uniform quantities of the chemical therein just sufiicient to ultimately-serve the intended purposes. The chemical used is relatively costly as compared to the paper stock which constitutes by far the greater proportion of the final volume of the insulating material; and the prior procedure therefore resulted in considerable waste of chemical since the amounts introduced could not be varied in accordance with increases or reductions in paper feed, and had to be maintained sufliciently abundant at all times to meet maximum paper feed requirements. As a result of this procedure, when the supply of paper fed to the mill was light, the quantity of chemical contained in the final product was It is therefore a more specific object of the present invention to provide an improved system of controlling the introduction of the chemical to a paper disintegrating mill or the like, wherein the quantity of chemical admitted is varied directly in accordance with variations in the paper stock feed, thus resulting in the production of final insulation having more uniform consistency than was heretofore possible, and reducing the production cost to a minimum by eliminating waste of valuable chemical.

Another specific object of this invention is to provide improved and simplified apparatus for automatically and continuously regulating the proportions of ingredients admitted to an insulation producin machine, so as to insure the procluction of uniform and most efiective final insulating material at moderate cost.

A further specific object of my invention is to provide improved instrumentalities for accurately controlling the delivery of several ingredients which vary widely in character, to a disintegrating and mixing chamber, in a manner whereby the proportions of the ingredients in the final mixture will automatically be maintained substantially constant at all times.

These and other specific objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description.

A clear conception of the features constituting my present improvement, and of the mode of efiecting commercial exploitation of the invention, may be had by referring to the drawing accompanying and forming a part of this specification wherein the various parts have been designated by suitable reference numerals.

The single figure of the drawing is a diagram showing one embodiment of my improved regulating system as applied to the manufacture of insulating material from paper.

While the invention has been shown and described herein by way of illustration, as being especially and advantageously applicable in the production of insulation from news print with the aid of specific types of electrical apparatus, it it not my desire or intent to unnecessarily limit or restrict the improvement to the use of such equipment or materials.

Referring to the drawing, the improved insulation production system shown therein, come prises in general a hammer mill or similar disintegrator 3 having therein a suitable disintegrating chamber; an endless belt or other suit able type of conveyor 4 for delivering a constant supply of any suitable material in bulk to the working chamber of the disintegrator 3; and a hopper 5 cooperating with a feed screw 6 which is constantly driven by a variable speed electric motor I, so as to deliver other material in regulated quantities to the disintegrator 3. In the present case, and in accordance with my present improvement, a floating or dancing roll 8 is caused to ride upon the bed of bulk material being transported toward the disintegrator 3 by the conveyor 4; and the rising and falling motion of this roll 9 is utilized to actuate a mercury tumbler actuated rheostat 9 which is adapted to cut in or to cut out resistances ill in order to vary the speed of the motor 1. The motor 1 is preferably of the gear head direct current type and is adapted to be driven by a direct current generator H which is in turn driven by an alternating current motor 12 deriving its power from any suitable source.

The bulk material which is transported by the belt conveyor 4 is preferably sheets of news print i3 which are laid fiatwise upon the upper conveyor stretch in advance of the roll 8, in layers of varying thickness dependent upon the available supply; and the other material normally fed by the screw 6 is granular chemical M which must ultimately be intimately mixed with the disintegrated news paper l3 in order to produce the final fire resistant and vermin proof insulating material. The dancing roll 8 is rotatably suspended from one arm of a swingable bell crank lever l5 which is pivotally supported upon a fixed pivot is, and the other arm of which is connected to the rheostat actuating lever H by an adjustable connection I8; and the lever l1 cooperates with the mercury tumbler switches of the rheostat 9 in such a manner that resistances ID of the series will be cut out successively and the motor 1 will speed up to increase the chemical feed as the layer of news print l3 thickens, whereas additional resistances ill will automatically be out in to reduce the motor speed as the layer of paper is reduced in thickness.

The feed screw 6 is housed within a suitable casing and is adapted to be constantly rotated by the motor I, at variable speed, through an endless chain or belt drive l9; and the feed screw housing is adapted to receive chemical 14 in granular form by gravity directly from the supply hopper 5 and delivers the chemical in varying quantities by gravity directly into the disintegrating chamber of the disintegrator 3, through a feed spout 20. The disintegrator 3 is preferably of the revolving rotor type having a rotor 2| provided with a plurality of radiating shredders or hammers revolvable at high speed constantly revclvable within the disintegrating chamber, so as to disintegrate the admitted news print l3 and to thoroughly mix the same with the granular chemical [4.

While the normal operation of the improved system of insulation production should be clearly apparent from the foregoing detailed description, a short resume of the normal functioning will be given. During such normal operation, the rotor 2! of the disintegrator 3 is being constantly revolved at relatively high speed, the conveyor 4 is also being operated to advance available news print l3 toward the working zone of the rotor 2|, and the driving motor 12 is likewis being operated to drive the generator H so as to make direct current available for the chemical feed driving motor 7. If no news print [3 is being transported by the conveyor 4, the roll 8 will ride in its lowermost position upon the conveyor deck and all of the switches of the mercury rheostat 9 will be closed so as to cut in all of the resistances l9, thereby stopping the motor I and hence the chemical feed. As more and more news print I3 is applied to the conveyor 4, the roll 8 rises higher and higher, thereby opening the switches of the rheostat 9 in succession and cutting out the successive resistances l0, until maximum capacity of paper feed has been attained. This cutting out of resistances causes the motor 1 to increase in speed, thereby producing like increas in quantity of the chemical l4 being delivered to the disintegrating zone by the feed screw 6; and if the quantity of paper stock decreases the quantity of chemical will decrease proportionately so that accurate proportioning of the several ingredients is automatically efiected at all times. In order to insure accurate functioning of the system and desirable proportioning of the ingredients, the connection l8 between the levers l5, ll may be readily adjusted so as to insur proper timing of the rheostat switches, but the entire assemblage is obviously simple in construction and dependable in action, and functions automatically after proper initial adjustments have been made.

From the foregoing detailed description it will be apparent that my present invention provides an improved system for controlling the delivery of several ingredients such as news print l3 and granular chemical M, to a disintegrating and mixing zone, whereby accurate proportioning of the ingredients is automatically obtained and uniform production results. While the electrical equipment interposed between the dancing roll 8 and the chemical feed screw 6 may be varied throughout a considerable range, this intervening mechanism must be such that the speed of rotation of the feed screw 6 will increase as the roll 8 rises, and will decrease as this floating roll drops, and the mechanism should furthermore be such that the feeding of chemical will cease when no stock is being fed by the conveyor 4. It has been found in actual practice that the assemblage of elements shown and described herein produces highly efficient results and enables the production of insulation containing uniform quantities of chemical i l suiiicient to fulfill their intended purposes, while eliminating undesirable waste of the relatively costly chemical. The system is also adapted to operate at high speed without sacrificing accuracy and has resulted in materially reducing the cost of production of the insulation.

It should be understood that it is not desired to limit this invention to the exact details of construction, or to the precise mode of use of the system, herein shown and described, for various modifications within the scope of the appended claims may occur to persons skilled in the art.

I claim:

1. A system of insulation production, comprising, a hammer mill, a conveyor having an approximately horizontal deck for delivering a layer of news print to the disintegrating chamber of said mill, a feed screw for delivering granular chemical to said chamber, a dancing roll riding upon the layer of news print being transported toward said chamber by said conveyor deck, a motor for driving said feed screw, a plurality of resistances adapted to be cut in or out to vary the speed of said motor, and an oscillatory mercury tumbler actuated rheostat operable by said roll for causing more or less of said resistances to become effective so as to vary the chemical feed directly in accordance with the news print supply.

2. A system of insulation production, comprising, a mill having a disintegrating and mixing chamber, a belt conveyor for delivering a layer of flat sheets of paper to said chamber, a feeder for simultaneously delivering granular material to said chamber, a roll riding upon the advancing layer of paper being transported toward said chamber by said conveyor, a lever supporting said roll, a motor for actuating said feeder, a plurality of resistances cooperating with said motor and being operable to vary the speed of .said motor directly in accordance with variations in the thickness of said layer, an oscillatory mercury tumbler actuated rheostat for operating said resistances and an adjustable connection between said rheostat and said lever.

3. A system of insulation production, comprising, a mill having a disintegrating and mixing chamber, a continuously operating conveyor for delivering a layer of fiat sheets of paper to said chamber, a feed screw for simultaneously delivering granular chemical to said chamber, a dancing roll riding upon the layer of paper advancing toward said chamber, a lever upon which said roller is mounted and being oscillatable by variations in the thickness of said layer, a motor for rotating said screw, resistances cooperable with said motor to vary the motor speed, a similarly oscillatable mercury tumbler rheostat disposed adjacent to said lever, and adjustable means connecting said lever and said rheostat for cutting more or less of said resistances in or out in accordance with variations in the thickness of said paper layer.

PETER J. SOULEN.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS 15 Number Name Date 2,199,137 Magnani Apr. 30, 1940 2,100,848 Hardgrove Nov. 30, 1937 1,601,811 Church Oct. 5, 1926 898,766 Mott Sept. 15, 1908 20 2,256,833 McDonald Sept. 23, 1941 

